NATO Defence Ministers Discuss Development of Defence Capabilities

Hungary is represented at the meeting by Minister of Defence Csaba Hende. The economic
crisis and the resulting cuts in many member states’ defence budgets leave their mark on
the debates over the defence package within the North Atlantic Alliance. Earlier, the United
States had already spent on military goals to a considerably greater proportion than the
average of the European allies, but recently this gap has widened further. Hungary has already
informed NATO that it can undertake not to decrease the proportion of defence spending –
which is currently somewhat less than 1 per cent – in this year’s and next year’s budgets, and
to increase it after 2014 by an annual 0.1 per cent. It is hoped that in this way the 1.4 per cent
will be reached again in the medium term.

To some extent, the expiry of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)’s
mandate at the end of next year in Afghanistan will lead to a new situation in NATO’s
finances. The international community will not let down the Central Asian state after 2015,
but the tasks of training, advising and mentoring will cost several orders of magnitude less
than keeping the combat units in Afghanistan. Thus the question arises whether the member
states are willing to reinvest some of the released sums for the purposes of defence. On
Friday, the ministers will discuss in detail the planned withdrawal of ISAF.

They will meet the Ukrainian defence minister on Friday too. This is going to be the first
NATO-Ukraine meeting on this level since the summer of 2010. NATO is striving to achieve
the best possible cooperation with Ukraine, despite the fact that Kijev clearly stated it no
longer aspires to NATO membership, contrary to the intentions announced by the previous
Ukrainian government. Ukraine is present with 164 troops in the NATO-led KFOR mission in
Kosovo, and it has also indicated its interest to participate in the post-2014 training project in
Afghanistan, which is currently taking shape. In the second half of this year, Ukraine intends
to contribute a frigate for several months to the efforts of the NATO-led Operation Ocean
Shield, which is part of the anti-piracy campaign off the coast of the Horn of Africa.